Pew Social Media Survey

Reshared post from +Tom Anderson

Here's an interesting social media survey conducted by PEW. When Americans were asked why they use social media, here's the answer for the "major" reason:

66% – Connect with Family & Friends
14% – Connecting around a shared hobby or interest
9% – Making new friends
5% – Following public figures
3% – Dating

If you read the full report (here: http://bit.ly/tQwozb), you'll see that they also collected stats on the "minor" or secondary reason Americans were using social networks. These numbers are quite telling — they add quite a few percentage points to the categories above that didn't get much interest:

35% – Connecting around a shared hobby or interest
34% – Making new friends
20% – Following public figures
13% – Dating

These stats are important when you consider the evolution (and potential evolution) of Google+

Right now, when you can't count on all your friends & family to be avid users of G+, these 4 categories are of key interest to Google and their strategy to pull more people in.

G+ is a great place to make new friends, "follow" people, connect around interests an even "date" — but can you build a major Internet service on a set of activities that so few people list as a "major" interest? I think G+ is proof that you can, and the key lies in the big percentage point gains in "minor" interest stat above.

There are a lot of people who are casually interested in these things, and G+ continues to thrive because it's making those things so easy, and doing them in a different way than any other service. Pursuing these groups consciously could really help G+ grow in these beginning phases. "Connecting with Family & Friends," as the main use case comes later. 🙂

The Pew press release is here: http://bit.ly/vwMYS4

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